


Children of Myth

by DarthVictoriana



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Intergenerational drama, Kylo Ren Redemption, Post TLJ, Warning: Mental Illness and Past Trauma, author writes like she thinks she's Herman Melville or something
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:04:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthVictoriana/pseuds/DarthVictoriana
Summary: Kylo Ren has ruined everything, and he knows it, and its his own fault. There is no conceivable way this story can end well. Until one night, at the very end of his rope, a miracle occurs.





	1. Kill Your Masters, Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everybody, welcome to my first fic in 5+ years! Rian Johnson made me do it. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> That said, please mind the warning. Our Ben Solo is not in a good place right now. He will get better with time, but if graphic POV depression is something you don't need in your life, I totally understand. 
> 
> If you're still with me, I'm ready to do this thing! Many thanks and virtual hugs to SulaRae, who beta'd this fic and has spent too much time listening to me rant about it on Tumblr. So. A Long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....

There had always been days when Kylo Ren wondered how he was still alive. But alive he was, and he had nobody to thank—or blame—for that but himself. Because every other sentient in the galaxy seems to be trying to achieve the opposite goal.

“Kriff.”

“He doesn’t look good.”

But of late, that sensation has become near constant. It plagues his every waking thought. He blows past two unimportant First Order peons, leaving them quaking in his wake. What they don’t realize is that he has the Force and he can hear them whisper several yards behind him.

“This can’t go on.”

He could turn around and strangle them right there. Two weeks ago he would have. But something awful has come over him—terror.

He puts on a burst of speed, as if Kylo Ren fleeing from a pair of radar jockeys makes any sense. The chilly, recycled air of the dark ship stings his throat as his breathing hitches for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that he is almost running towards his quarters.

Yesterday he slept for thirteen hours. He woke up because nature called, and would have collapsed on his bed for another five hours of completely unrefreshing sleep had he not happened to look at his wrist comm. In the middle of reports from that damn General Hux that appeared like clockwork every three hours, was one that stated at the end, “I do hope our Supreme Leader is not too ill to lead his Empire. It would be very sad if you should not be capable of fulfilling your role, and I do hope you will be up and about shortly.”

That got him. The man means something by that. Something more than just needling at him like he has always done. He isn’t sure whether it’s the Force, the dark whispers that have plagued him his whole life, or just his own mind ripping apart at the seams, but he knows that something terrible is on the horizon. No matter how he runs, something is coming for him.

And it can’t be those dark whispers, because those stopped when he cut Snoke in two. Which terrifies him even more than if they hadn’t. Which means that he’s just succumbed to paranoia and watching himself go crazy. Which is….great.

And he has no idea what the hell to do about it. He has no mentors and no masters, which would theoretically be his ideal, but he has nobody to ask or blame for what’s happening. He has no recourse. What would he do, run away and join the Resistance? Try to vanish somewhere in the expansion region? Not now that he has a scar running up his face, and has been walking around the command ship with no helmet for weeks.

This morning as he stood in the ‘fresher, watching the water tumble down the drain around his feet and trying not to see a metaphor in it, the dread had risen so strongly up in him that he had wound up sitting on the floor, nails digging marks into his own arms as he stared wide eyed at the wall.

Why? Because he realized as he stared at the water pouring down the drain (which absolutely was a metaphor), how utterly naked and exposed he was in the face of his enemies now. And his enemies were everyone.

He reaches the relative security of his own quarters, pounds in the code to open the door and mashes the button to slam it behind himself as soon as he’s in.

He had been born broken, and was sure of that as long as he could remember. He had done everything to fix himself, though, to be worthwhile. He gave up his privileged life as the son of a Senator, sole heir to the fortune of two obsolete royal bloodlines, to be a Jedi. And for the path of a Jedi he renounced anger, indulgence, sex, attachments, fear…not that he was very good at giving up any of that, but he _tried_ to give it all up in exchange for something that would make him somebody. Until his master betrayed him, at least.

Perhaps he was meant for better, Darker things all along. The rumors and whispers that plagued his family had been right all along, his own uncle turned on him. What those dark mutterings told him must be true, and he could be the heir of the Chosen One if he had enough devotion: a New Vader. He surrendered his name, his books, his first lightsaber, the breeze on his face, his voice, seeing the stars with his own eyes, everything he had ever been. All to be remade in Darth Vader’s image.

He killed Han Solo because Snoke told him it was necessary, to break free of the chains of his past that were holding him back from his true purpose. And Kylo Ren had faith.

Where had he gotten himself now? After all that sacrifice, after he had nothing else to give…

His room is as depressingly empty as it has always been. That helmet is still sitting exactly where it has always been. Watching him. And he hates it. But right now he’s so desperate that he finds himself kneeling before the helmet. Like he used to do all the time.

He bows his head in silence at first, morbid dread still coursing through him, until he can’t take being watched any more.

“I am here, Lord Vader….” he mumbles, almost a child’s prayer to a God who refuses to answer.

The breath is yanked from his lungs as another consciousness surges up in his mind, bright and warm like a geyser bursting through rock. His head throbs as an entire, separate mind forces itself into a skull only meant to hold one. It’s almost like when the girl slammed him back into his own mind and followed him in, except the girl came through the front of his consciousness, as if through his eyes. This one was everywhere at once, engulfing him: he panics, unsure how to push back and guard his own mind when there was no part of his mind unaffected.

“Ha! Well that wasn’t as difficult as I expected it would be.”

Lord Vader this is not. This spirit was too warm, exudes too much kindness and patience, speaks too gently. And besides that, the voice belongs to a woman. His lungs force themselves open, sucking in the cold, stale air of the Supremacy. But there is something very different: he can smell millaflower perfume. The flower of the Naboo.

“But that’s the way, I suppose.”

He sucks in a few more desperate breaths, struggling for equilibrium. The millaflower fragrance seeps into him like blood soaking through cloth, and he feels the clenched balls of tension in his shoulders and back just…give up.

“Hello? Are you there?” She speaks again, voice smoothing over his mind.

“Yes.” He whispers through clenched teeth.

“Do you recognize me?”

He nods, for all the good that does. “Grandmother.”

“I am. What do they call you?” If she means it as the most pointed off all questions, he misses it.

“Kylo Ren.”

“Oh. I see.”

He tries pushing against her with his mind, disentangling themselves a little. He is treated to what feels like a pinch at the top of his spinal cord.

“Stop that.” She says firmly. He stops immediately. But he does run the parts of his mind that feel most functional up against the edges of Padmé’s. She doesn’t seem to be able to probe his mind like a Force Sensitive would try to do. She’s definitely not ransacking his thoughts. She’s simply…there. She is too bright, but other than that the discomfort of having them both contained in his head, there doesn’t appear to be anything terrible about Padmé’s Amidala’s presence.

In fact, this might be a fascinating exercise. This is the only love of Darth Vader. The passion that brought down worlds. He has wondered about her before: who was the woman worthy of holding the heart of the Chosen One, to carry his children? Was she beautiful? Dark and mysterious? Full of guile and cunning? Passionate and fiery?

“What are you doing here…” He pauses, unsure what to call her. They’ve never met before. Does he call her by her name?

“‘Grandmother’ will suffice. Because I heard you crying out.”

“I wasn’t crying out.” He immediately contradicts her.

“Yes you were, Kylo. You were screaming.”

Kylo does the mental equivalent of biting his tongue. He would not argue with Darth Vader’s beloved. He’s in no position to make anyone angrier at him, anyway. Fortunately for him, Padmé breaks the silence.

“I’d like to be able to see each other.”

“I agree.” A wave of assent comes from Padmé’s mind. He digs deep into himself, envisioning the part of himself that is Padmé Amidala, quite literally her…and mentally pours it into the empty space he knows is in front of him. The pressure in his skull eases, the smell of millaflower is even stronger. But he is too afraid to open his eyes. He has no idea who he will see, and who can now see him.

He kneels there, eyes screwed shut, as he hears a gentle rustle of fabric. The ghost of two fingers brushes against his cheek, over the jagged scar bisecting his face. He recoils. Nobody touches him. They don’t want to, nor do they dare—not since the scavenger had offered him her hand. And then had rejected it less than a day later.

“Kylo. Let me look at you.” She has no Jedi mind tricks, but she has some other power; her commands are so gently spoken they hardly sound like commands, but they demand obedience. He opens his eyes.

She is leaning over him, taller than General Organa, but very much like the General overall. From what Kylo remembers of another man’s childhood, gazing up at the Princess of Alderaan, she and Padmé could have been sisters. She is dressed in some yellow-gold confection of a dress that sits low around her shoulders and has many, many gauzy layers of skirt. The General Organa likeness is hammered home by two buns in gold nets on either side of her face, and a waterfall of brown curls tumbling about her and billowing in the Force.

Fierce pride fills him to know that at least one of his expectations had been met, Lord Vader’s bride was as beautiful as he had hoped. That’s something. And she is smiling at him.

“There you are! That’s not so terrible, is it?” Her transparent hand reaches out and catches him under the chin, pressing up until his gaze meets hers. He feels like he’s about to drown, her presence is too strong. She is comfort, advice, playfulness, old fashioned sweets that are chalky and nobody eats anymore, too much perfume, the remnant of a bygone era that slips further lightyears away every day…a grandmother, he supposes. He has no frame of reference, though. The emotion pouring off her into his mind, though, is the part that is unbearable: she loves him.

Specifically, she doesn’t love him for any trait or prowess, in fact it’s quite the opposite. She loves him merely for existing, because on some level he belongs to her, and there is nothing he can be that would make her not love him. She loves him in spite of what he is. He felt that once before, radiating off of Han Solo.

Before Kylo ignited a lightsaber through his chest. Han Solo’s flame had been snuffed out in an instant, and his aging body plummeted away as Kylo released it.

But there is nothing he can or would do against Padmé Amidala. She is Vader’s beloved, she is honored. Raising a hand against her would be heresy. Besides that, she is already dead. She is beyond anyone’s reach. His mind writhes, trying to push her affection away. But trying to fight her hurts. It burns like tearing muscle.

Padmé knows what he is doing, too, because she she shoots a very brief Look at him before resuming her careful study of him. He stoically endures her gaze, the occasional brush of her palm on his face, until her hand comes to rest on the side of his head.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say you favor your mother and I. But you have Ani’s hair texture and cheekbones. I’d know them anywhere.”

Kylo turns red. He knows there is praise in that statement, being likened to Darth Vader; but he is also deeply shocked to hear Lord Vader referred to as “Ani.” He supposes though, on second thought, that of course Lord Vader’s beloved would call him something endearing. General Organa liked to refer to Han Solo as “a scoundrel” and “a nerfherder,” so this seems par the course.

Padmé cocks her head, sliding her thumb down to catch the scar on his face where it runs across his cheek. “What’s this, though?”

“Nothing.”

“I see. And how did ‘nothing’ happen?” She retorts, staring him down.

He ducks his head, and mumbles, “The girl struck me. With the Skywalker blade. I was already wounded at the time.”

“And The Girl is?”

“…Just some junker from Jakku.”

“Ah, just some girl from Jakku, who struck you in the face with the Skywalker blade. Of course.” She prodded at the mostly healed scar some more. “This scar could be repaired by a medDroid. Why haven’t you had it taken care of?”

“I don’t know.” This was partially true. Were he to sit down and take a long, objective look at himself, he could probably find multiple reasons. His face had been in the process of being repaired by a droid when he had seen The Girl. Standing in the middle of the med bay, the single speck of brown and blue in a pit of steel and cold, stale air. It was so stale on these ships.

Padmé gives him an odd look, and smirks. “It’s quite all right, Kylo. My side of the family appears to have a weakness for junkers, scavengers, and scrappers who are willing to battle opponents much larger than themselves.”

He’s genuinely confused by that remark. “I would have thought you always knew.”

“Knew what?” She seems equally baffled.

Admittedly, that probably hadn’t been the clearest. “I would have thought you knew from the beginning that he was The Chosen one. That was what you saw in him back when he was just Anakin Skywalker, yes?”

Padmé has gone very silent, and is pursing her lips.

Kylo, though, has never been good at picking up on when he’s just digging himself deeper. “You saw something great in him even when he a lowly Padawan and the son of a slave. Besides being a great leader you saw the truth—even though you weren’t Force Sensitive—even when Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi council were blind to it. That’s why you chose him, that’s what made you the one fated to be the bride of Darth Vader!—“

“Do not call me that,” She says sharply. She looks so thunderously angry, she might slap him. “I married Anakin Skywalker. Your grandfather is Anakin Skywalker. Let me be immensely transparent, Ben: if Darth Vader had been the same as Anakin Skywalker from day one, there would be no your mother, and by extension no you. So you can put a stop to that assumption this instant.

“For your edification, Anakin Skywalker was a noble Jedi; Darth Vader was a slave to the Emperor who used the Force to choke me. His wife. I’ve no doubt he would have killed me if Obi-Wan Kenobi hadn’t intervened. While I was pregnant, by the way. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, but Obi-Wan came with me to find him to beg with him to come home. He had murdered a training temple full of child Padawans. Little, little Padawans about this big.” She extends her hand to just bellow rib height.

“What?” Kylo has no idea how to respond. None whatsoever. He has exalted the notion of Darth Vader and Padmé Amidala in his mind, its something he’s very aware of. Bonded by fate, brought together across the stars, tragically in love, cursed and separated before their time by the same fates, their story is all but the will of the Force incarnate. He’s reminded himself of the deeply romantic notion more frequently than he cares to admit—they were a different kind of lovers than Han Solo and Leia Organa had been.

But he could never imagine either that Han Solo or General Organa raising a hand against the other was a possibility. Han Solo had willingly gone into a carbon-freezing chamber and surrendered himself to Jabba the Hutt for General Organa. He feels repulsed. Sickened.

Kylo Ren is brutal. Kylo Ren has no idea how many he’s struck down. But hurting a small child who hadn’t done anything but dare to exist turns his stomach, too. Primarily because he’s been there. He brought down a building on Luke Skywalker and torched his temple to the ground—because his own uncle had tried to murder him for nothing.

The difference between himself and the Jedi younglings slaughtered by Darth Vader was that he had been a man already and was about to become a Knight himself. He was strong enough to strike back; a six year old Palawan would be helpless. And that made it even worse.

It turns his stomach—he’s a hypocrite and he knows it. He’s a murderer too. But the betrayal and murder of younglings is a line in the sand in Kylo’s mind, as is violence against one’s beloved, and he feels it like a betrayal to him too. He’s a hypocrite to be angry and disgusted by Vader, to feel betrayed by this knowledge, but in all honesty he’s just as angry and disgusted at his own betrayal of Kylo Ren.

Killing Han Solo, liberating himself of that influence, was supposed to make him invincible. Instead it turned him squeamish, tearful, restless, and easily nauseated. He hates himself more now than he ever has before. And it’s a kriffing shame, because for a split second in the throne room, he liked himself for the first time he can remember. Through victory, his chains were broken. The Force had set him free—no, he had set him free. And then he ruined it. It is kill or be killed in this galaxy, and he has made himself too weak to be the killer.

“Should I show you, Kylo?” Padmé is asking. Panic surges up like, so strong it feels like acid reflux.

“Please don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I believe you already.” He tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “I don’t want to see.”

Padmé gives him one of the saddest looks he’s ever seen. She rests both her shadowy hands on top of his head, and smooths them down over either side of his face. “What has the Dark done to you, Ben Solo? What have _you_ done to you?”

“Everything. My own mother said once that before I was born that she could sense my presence. She told Luke that I had been a band of light that occasional shrank and was shot through with darkness. And Luke had had nothing good to say to that.” He says the last bit with much more venom than he had wanted. “Which tells me that this whole thing was set in motion long before I ever heard any voices.”

“Well I think that’s nonsense. Everyone has darkness in them, that’s what it means to be a person. It’s everything else that came after that that went wrong, isn’t it?”

He’s silent for a moment, and then meets her eyes. “There were supposed to be people there. Who were supposed to take care of me.”

Padmé sighs. “Surely you understand, your family were doing what they thought was the right thing. It was the right thing, for the galaxy. It needed saving. Although that doesn’t mean that they didn’t fail to save you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there.”

“You were dead.” Kylo says. He’s actually alarmed that she would apologize for his misfortune. Like she was supposed to have done anything.

She doesn’t pay attention. “I know Han Solo did his best for you, but he was completely unaware of the ways of the Jedi. At least I was around them every day for years. I might have seen what was happening. And in any case, I would have been older, retired by the time you came along. I could have stayed with you. There were wonderful things on Chandrila, libraries, parks…we would have had fun together. While your family saved the galaxy, you could have been mine.”

And for the first time, Kylo thinks about what it might have been like. Sitting alone in General Organa’s ship, reading holobooks and playing Dejarik against the droids for hours at a time. He remembers the terror of the nights, when it grew dark and the voices coiled around his mind. The shadows on the floors of the ship would grow deeper, flicker from corner to corner. They whispered things to him. At first he had hidden under blankets, and pretended to be asleep as his only defense against the heart-racing fear. But they would just come closer, always closer, whispering always…

How different it would have been, if his grandmother had been with him. If rather than his mother’s frequent absence and his father’s complete lack of knowledge about the ways of the Force, let alone the Dark Side, there had been someone around who knew what was happening. The shadows would have stayed where they belonged if his grandmother had been there to guard him.

How miserable his life has been, how very pointless, from the time he first felt the Dark until this very second. His life has been nothing— _nothing_ — but a veritable kick line of betrayals, broken aspirations, shattered loves. Some have been inflicted on him, but mostly the inflictor has been himself. How much better it would have been for the galaxy if the incredible mistake of his conception had never occurred.

His breath hitches. He isn’t long for the physical world. There’s no way he can be. He’s overstretched himself: he should have cut his losses, struck Hux down, and fled for his life as soon as he came to in the throne room. His impulse, to lie and seize control of the situation, had been sensible at the time, but now he was trapped.

And he was trapped in any direction he could try to run. The Resistance would shoot him down on sight, for all the destruction he had wrought on them. General Organa and The Girl would demand his death for the murder of Han Solo. The Jedi were gone because he had helped kill them. The ghosts of all those he had killed were coming for him now. They were coming for him now.

“…But yes, I don’t believe it for a minute, at any rate. I’ve never met a monster who realized they were one. Senator Palpatine certainly didn’t he was evil. Neither did Darth Vader…”

He doesn’t hear what Padmé is saying at all. He can’t breathe. The pressure in his head is far too intense, but not just from the presence of Padmé Amidala. He can feel his throat closing up like it’s being crushed by another unseen Sith, he can feel his own flying heart. He’s not going to live long enough to be killed by the Resistance, or the First Order, or The Girl, the shades will kill him right now and he’s going to suffocate on the floor of his quarters—

—Is the oxygen replenishment failing on this ship? Is he having a heart attack? One hand hits the floor without his knowledge, the other claws at his collar. He has a comm on him, he considers hitting the panic button; but as soon as he thinks it he knows that if the officers of the First Order find him weak and gasping he won’t be helped, they’ll laugh as he perishes. More than that, they’ll finish him off on the spot if he starts to look like he’ll survive. Chills are consuming his body, he can feel rushing blood and tears about to spill over. He digs furiously into himself, for that spark of rage and pain that can drive him through anything,

He nearly screams. It’s awful. He feels himself retch like it’s not his own body. He’s found pain, and with it every iota of fear in the Dark, and it wants to eat his mind alive. It is eating his mind alive. He’s going insane. Oh, he’s always known he’s not quite like everyone else in the head, but now he’s going really and truly off the deep end. There’s only going to be a raving shell of Kylo Ren left when his men assassinate him, or his own mother orders his execution, and maybe it would be better if they just hurried up—why is the air so disgusting and _thin_ on this kfriffing ship! He’s crawling out of his skin!

Desperate, he lurches at Padmé Amidala—the only one he’s sure isn’t going to try to kill him—and flings himself at her. He’s so out of it, it doesn’t even occur to him to be stunned that he can touch her when he gets both arms around her lower waist and buries his face in her stomach. “Help me, Grandmother! Help me!” She’s speaking, but he’s not understanding. “Please, save me!”

A panic attack. That’s what the thing he’s having is called. He’s had them before. He’s babbling to Padmé now, a stream of expletives and continued begging because if he stops talking he’ll stop breathing. Not that it means much of anything. This raving panic must be must be an improvement from a few seconds ago, because Padmé’s voice reaches him at last.

“I can’t save you, Kylo. Only you can do that.”

“They’re going to kill me, the First Order is going to kriffing kill me, that bastard son of a whore Hux is going to kill me, by the Force, I’m a dead man. I’m a dead man—”

“Kylo!” She’s gripping him by the upper arms, but she doesn’t feel quite as real any more. “Can you say something with me?” He looks up at her, trembling uncontrollably. “Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through strength…”

He starts speaking without much conscious thought. “Through strength I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free. Ja’ak, ja’ak. Through passion I gain strength, through strength I gain power, through power I gain victory…” He can’t hold himself up forever. Padmé Amidala slips away from him. He feels so utterly bereft. He doesn’t know how or when he winds up lying on the cold, hard, duracrete floor, but he does, still muttering the Qotsisajak to himself.

When the tears come, and the feeling of suffocation starts to pass, it’s a blessed relief. He has no idea how long he lies there.

 


	2. The Wrecks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, back in the maelstrom that is Kylo Ren's internal monologue! Thanks again to SulaRae, who continues to help me catch grammatical weirdness and gives a listening ear to my plot bunnies. She writes a hilarious old school Superhero AU that can be read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506650/chapters/33515232), and which I highly encourage you to check out.

Several days later Kylo Ren is leading a squadron of fighters to perform a sweep of Hoth. In the wake of Crait, Kylo ordered the fleet to travel to each Rebel base he can remember, and sweep it for the miserable remnants of the Resistance. And when he finds them…

 

Well, he supposes he’ll have to kill General Organa and The Girl. There’s not much else to be done. He might lock the Girl up, see if she reconsiders his offer? They’ve already cleared Dantooine, Tatooine (which wasn’t a base but seemed historically likely), and Vrogas Vas. Crait was also obviously empty. Kylo was starting to suspect that they were aware of his plan, and were moving in his wake. Or maybe just ahead of him, always out of reach.

 

They are most of the way down to the planet’s icy surface, several miles into the atmosphere proper, when something begins to feel…very wrong. Kylo checks his monitors. TIE Fighters behind him, as planned. Another squadron is entering the atmosphere as well, also as planned. But it was a feeling he couldn’t shake, like insects crawling up his spine and scurrying around at the back of his head.  He shivers.

 

An image, a memory flashes across his mind so vividly he can hardly see his current reality— _ He’s twelve and walking past the Great Library of Hanna City, when suddenly he sees a dead fish on the pavement. He stares at a second, confused and disgusted, and then barks with laughter, “Well of course you’re dead, what did you expect? There’s no water here, stupid, you should have stayed where it was wet.” _

 

He shakes himself. Good old intrusive thoughts. Either that, or the Force is cracking up as badly as he is. He checks his rear monitors again. His squadrons are still behind him.

 

Suddenly, Hux’s cool voice sounds over his communication system. “Fighters, lock on target.” Kylo is about to hit his own comm, ask the ridiculous General what he’s on about and to shut the hell up, when intuition tells him to look over his shoulder instead.

 

The fighters that had been flying in a V behind him are shifting formation. The ones on the end have accelerated, and it’s more like a line bowed towards him than a V with him as the point. That second formation is sure coming in fast, too. He has one split second that feels like an eternity as he whirls around in his seat where he knows what’s about to happen.

 

He’s so fucked.

 

“Fire at will!”

 

BOOM! At least six guns sound immediately.

 

As a final survival impulse, he pulls his TIE Silencer up, at an angle to Hoth’s surface instead of perpendicular to it.

 

BAM! He lurches sideways, and slams face first into some of the controllers as the whole ship shudders; the pain is absolutely blinding. A crackling noise gets his attention, and he snaps his head up. One of the panels of the of his windshield is breaking up, the cracks spidering from one corner out. He comprehends that more than screeching noise his ship is making, or the blood pouring into his mouth. Somebody is screaming bloody murder, and it must be him.

 

Hardly thinking of it, he hangs on to the steering controls with one hand, and holds the other out in front of himself. Summoning a shield with this much fear is easy. The sound of more gun blasts is muffled as it fills the cockpit of his ship, pressing him back into his seat.

 

The horrible, grating sound of rending metal fills his ears, he is thrown sideways again as one side of the fighter snaps up, and then plummets down, rolling over and over and over! The white surface of Hoth and the gray sky flip around and around through his windshield, his body is dashed around against his force shield as the fighter is hit a few more times, for some reason he’s pointed straight down at the rapidly approaching ground—

 

SLAM

 

His head snaps painfully forward, banging into his force barrier, and for a second he feels oddly weightless.

 

CRASH

 

Even with the force barrier a massive shock runs up his back and down his legs, followed by a grating, crunchy sound as the Tie Silencer grinds across the ice.

 

He’s finally stopped moving. At least he’s pretty sure he is, because he feels like he’s moving backwards. Suddenly he notices that he’s still letting out a series of short, gasped screams.

 

“Aaaarg! Kriff! Damn!” He manages to work himself down into expletives and panting. Now he’s aware of just how much hurts. His ears feel fuzzy. His neck, tailbone, and the inside of his mouth burn. His head is throbbing on the right side. And come to think of it, he’s definitely got slobbery blood running over his bottom lip. He spits hard. He’s survived being hit four or five times and crashing at least ten klicks straight into the surface of a planet with only a bloody mouth and what is probably a concussion and some whiplash.

 

“Well done, pilots.” Hux’s cool voice says. How is he still getting reception on his comm? “You’ve served the First Order Admirably. Return immediately to The Finalizer. It seems we’re about to have a little rebellion by the former Lord Ren’s devotees on our hands.”

 

“We ought to ensure he’s dead, General.” One of the fighters says. “Land and check the wreck out. Fill it with blaster fire.” Kylo’s heart stops.

 

“Negative. Report immediately to put down attempted escape by Lord Ren’s sympathizers. We will have them all today. I don’t believe for a moment that crash didn’t kill him, but on the off chance he’s still hanging on by a thread, Hoth will finish him off itself. I’m more concerned by the Knights of Ren than a battered madman.”

 

“Yes, General.”

 

He hears several Tie Fighters diving down towards his position. He gasps, and lets himself hang limply over the side of his pilot’s seat, in case they can see him through the windshield. Blood and saliva dribble miserably out of his mouth down his jacket, and his head absolutely pounds at this angle.

 

Sure enough, he hears a comm from one pilot to another, “Yeah, he looks dead enough to me.”

 

He keeps hanging over, barely breathing, until he he hears their turbo thrusters blaze to life and propel the squadrons out of atmosphere. He picks his head up once the only Force Signature he can feel is his own, and lets out a shaky sigh of relief.

 

A secondary wave of relief, and something like sick triumph runs through him as he realizes that his means he was actually right. He wasn’t just losing his mind, Hux really was planning something!

 

Then he looks out the broken windshield. Any sense of relief flies away as he takes in the ice planet Hoth. He knows how cold it gets here.

 

Luke Skywalker nearly died here.

 

His breath catches as he reaches out to see if his TIE Silencer will even start. It makes a sputtering sound, lights and control panels flash around him, an alarm blares!—and they all die. From what he saw of his main dash, almost the whole ship is circled as “Critical Damage,” but he knows he saw one engine and both wings.

 

He’s well and truly stranded. And he can already feel himself getting cold.

 

With no way off the planet, and no way to produce heat, it’s only a matter of time before he freezes. A much shorter time than he would like too.

 

So he does the only thing that makes sense, calls on the only one who he knows will care. He takess a deep, shaky breath, lets his eyes roll closed, and tries to meditate.

 

It’s next to impossible to ground himself enough to do this while panicking as hard as he is, but Kylo finally manages. He can only hope she will answer.

 

“Grandmother,” he clenches his hands together to control their shaking, screws his eyes shut even harder. He doesn’t know how to call her. He didn’t call her on purpose last time. Formality, rituals, titles, the way he used to entreat the spirit of Darth Vader are what come back to him.  “Queen of the Naboo. I call on you, Padmé Amidala Naberrie, honored progenitor of a lost line. Your scion calls you in his time of desertion and need…” He jerks his hands in frustration. “Come on, Grandmother, I’m quite literally dying out here!”

 

He feels the press in his skull again. With all his other aches and pains, it’s excruciating. It takes everything he has to lean into the pain instead of shying away. The spring bursts open in his mind.

 

“Kylo?”

 

“Grandmother, you made it! To make a long story short, I was right all along, and Hux just had his men try to assassinate me.”

 

“Oh?” There’s a moment’s hesitation from Padmé. “Yes, I can see that. What’s the matter?”

 

“I’ve crashed on Hoth. An ice planet. I’m stranded and I can’t fly this craft anymore. I don’t know how long I have before I freeze.” He starts running calculations in his head. “I can hold it off with the Force for a while, I’m somewhat sheltered, but night temperatures around here reach about minus sixty degrees and humans can develop frostbite in five minutes in sufficiently low temperatures…”

 

“I see the problem. You don’t have that much time.” Padmé cuts him off. He can feel her pondering, it feels an awful lot like she’s pacing back and forth. “You’re sure your ship can’t be repaired? Does this have hyperdrive technology?”

 

Kylo shakes his head. “No. I’ve lost a wing, tip of the one I have left got snapped off, windshield is broken, and I think I’ve lost an ion drive. I certainly can’t power them up.” He swallows. “Is…is there anything you can do?”

 

“No.” She sighs. “I’m just a ghost in your head. I’m not a Jedi.”

 

“Still better than having Snoke in your head.”

 

Padmé is thinking again. “Is there anyone you can call to come rescue you?”

 

“No. The First Order is busy cleaning up the Knights of Ren and anyone else Hux thinks is on my side. Not that I’m entirely sure they would come save me anyway.”

 

“What about the Resistance?”

 

“…They’ll kill me.”

 

“Will they?” Padmé sounds very skeptical. “Your mother is their leader.”

 

“Yes, and I murdered her husband. And then two weeks ago, when her twin brother died after a duel? That was me he had been fighting, too.”

 

Padmé sighs heavily. “Why do you do this to yourself, Kylo?”

 

“An excellent question.”

 

“I’m not convinced, but you’ve ruled out the Resistance as an entity. But what about the Girl?”

 

Kylo hesitates. “What do you mean?”

 

“She’s come to save you once before. I think she’d do it again.”

 

“I’d expect she hates me by now too.” He thinks for a second. “And she works with the Resistance too. Calling her is effectively calling them.”

 

“Like I said, I’m not convinced the Resistance would kill you if you surrendered. I think your mother would spare you, despite what you’ve done. But in any case, you don’t know that she would take you straight to the Resistance. She might be willing to hide you somewhere. From what I know, she wouldn’t let anybody hurt you.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“Not. Anybody.”

 

~

 

“I say we power down most of the ship, seal it up except for the bits we really need.” Says Karé Kun (or, Karé Wexley, depending on your tastes. However she currently thinks most of the people present don’t know she’s married. She is wrong). “Besides being creepy as hell, we’re burning a lot of power we aren’t using.”

 

“We’re traveling through the outer rim and expansion regions! It isn’t safe to look like a ghost ship, that’s just asking for someone to try to raid us.” Says commander D’Acy, looking aghast. The Resistance, all dozen of them, are gathered around the galley table of their new command ship, the Ackbar.

 

“We have plenty of fuel.” Says Rose Tico. “As the mechanic, that’s not really what I’m worried about. I agree with Commander D’Acy, I’m more worried about us getting jumped.” After the Battle of Crait, Leia gave orders for them to travel to the base on Yavin IV. It was there that they fired up an ancient cruiser from the Galactic Civil War, loaded it with two useable X wings, all the ration packs and supplies they could find, and then shoved off to the next abandoned base they could plunder. And that is what they have done since then.

 

“Perhaps there’s a compromise?” Kaydel Connix interjects. “What if we consolidated ourselves in one part of the ship, sealed the rest, and just left the lights on so it looks like the ship is full?”

 

“Guys, the solution is so simple: all we have to do to convince other ships that we’re fully crewed is make cutouts and stick them in the window ports! With the help of cardboard, eleven people can absolutely fill a 600 person ship! It’ll be easy!” Saps Iolo Arana, a male Keshian, as he scrubs his eyes.  When he opens them again, the whites are very angry and pink. Which is hard to tell on a Keshian, since the majority of his eyes are taken up by a massive, opalescent iris and W shaped pupils.

 

Nein Nunb and Chewie chuckle.

 

“I know you’re tired, buddy.” Poe says sympathetically. “But let’s try, okay?”

 

“I mean, look on the one, very small bright side, I suppose.” Finn says. “This is probably the first time a lot of us have had all we can eat and plenty of personal space, yeah?”

 

The bridge is very quiet for a moment. Nobody seems to have the heart to tell Finn that only he and Rey consider unlimited protein bites and a room to oneself grounds for calling something a utopia. To the rest of them, it’s like prison on this ship. Not to mention that while they have plenty of food, most of it is emergency packs for starvation situations. Sure, they found plenty of sealed, processed food in the bases they’ve raided, but most of the whole packaged ingredients have gone bad sometime in the last thirty years, and emergency rations aren’t meant to be eaten long term. For one, they’re so monotonous that most species will lose their desire to eat after a while. Beside that, you can only eat squares of crude proteins mixed with fat and vitamins for so long before the total lack of fiber makes things…interesting.

 

Poe, who has already lost eleven pounds he did not want to lose in the last two weeks, has his hands over his mouth and is glaring into space. Kaydel Connix, who is sitting next to him, gives him a very light pat. Leia recovers first.

 

“Thank you, Finn, I appreciate that outlook.”

 

“Don’t get me wrong, General. I like the idea of sealing up parts of the ship. Walking around an empty ship is already disturbing, but hearing all the creaks and those strange birds wailing echoing over the place is starting to really freak me out.”

 

“Points taken, dear, but I think the risk of turning three-fourths of the ship off just leaves us far too vulnerable.” Rose retorts. “There’s junkers, there’s pirates…”

 

“Much worse, the First Order.” Leia mutters darkly.

 

They’re silent again, contemplating just how bad it would be if they ran into real fire power.

 

Poe clears his throat. “Well. It sounds like we aren’t powering any parts of the ship down!”

 

Commander D’Acy nods. “I think, though, Lt. Connix might have a point. We can seal off the passenger areas, the mess hall, the brig, most of the cargo storage….”

 

“We’re going to have to open them sometimes. I know there are porgs down in cargo and we can’t seal them in and let them die.” Rose points out.

 

“Ah yes, our very own ecological disaster waiting to happen…”

 

Something flits across Rey’s consciousness like a ghost. Her head snaps up. She could have sworn she heard someone call her name. That she heard him call her name.

 

She’s seen him since Crait. She’s seen him far more than she wants. Four nights ago, while she was getting ready for bed, she had nearly run screaming from her cabin when she turned around to face her bunk and found a bare, pale shoulder and a mop of dark hair sticking out from her covers. She’d clapped both hands over her mouth to smother the shriek, even as she realized he wasn’t really there. She had sat in a corner biting her nails and watching him for at least 20 standard minutes until he disappeared.

 

But there’s no good reason he should be calling her. She stands up, as if in a trance, twisting her head around.

 

“I say we should stick one of those birds in a small flak vest and make it our mascot.” She hardly hears Poe saying over the whooshing, warping sound in her ears.

 

“Rey!” Finn interjects. Her eyes dart down to him. “Are you all right?”

 

“Yeah. I’m fine. Um…I need to pee.” She says, with far too much conviction. She can tell at a glance that General Organa doesn’t believe her for a second. “Excuse me.”

 

Rey doesn’t stick around take in the odd looks she’s getting, and stands up and scurries out, sliding the doors closed behind her. She looks around, trying to see what pulled her away from the others. She looks up the hall towards the nose of the ship, to the doors of the second level observation deck. Nothing. She looks down the hall, towards the mess. Nothing. She looks back towards the observation deck.

 

There are shiny red droplets leading from where she stands out to the observation deck. Blood, by the looks of it. Alarmed, she begins to follow the drips of blood.

 

If there’s a dead porg at the end, she’s going to freak out.

 

She can feel the hairs rising on the back of her neck as she slips into the observation deck, a tinging sensation running along her skin, a high whine in her ears that only grows and grows—

 

There’s a few chairs in the command deck. Old, ugly, padded swivel chairs facing the view port as stars whizz past them. A stand with a data pad protrudes on a spindly stalk out from the port. The drops of blood are growing harder and harder to follow as she trails them further into the shadows of the half lit room.

 

The trail stops right in front of the view port. The prickly feelings and whining noise stop just as abruptly. She looks up out of the window, confused. Is she supposed to be seeing something?

 

“Rey.”

 

~

 

There she is, standing almost in the windshield of his TIE Silencer, looking out through it for him.

 

“Rey.” He rasps.

 

Rey jumps, and whirls around towards him. “Ben Solo.” She studies him for a split second and gasps. “You’re bleeding.”

 

“General Hux, he had First Order pilots shoot me down.”

 

Rey still looks concerned, but her face twitches. “Why would that be?”

 

“Clearly, he thinks I’m insane.”

 

“Can’t imagine where he got that impression.” Rey snorts.

 

“Can we mock me later? I don’t have long.”

 

“You don’t…have long?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re not bleeding much. You should run now.”

 

“I can’t. It’s not the bleeding that’s going to get me. I can take care of that much. I’m stranded.” He explains, trying to stay calm. Rey has unfolded one arm, and is holding her hand out into the air above his head, peering around. She starts to talk over him.

 

“Where are you? It’s colder.”

 

“Hoth. The ice planet.”

 

Rey considers for a moment. “That’s where Echo Base was. R2-D2 said Master Luke nearly froze, and then that was where General Organa kissed him. Before they knew they were twins, yes?”

 

Kylo cringes with every fiber in his body. “Yes.” R2-D2 was always the worst droid when it came to never being able to watch what he said.

 

Rey is chewing her lip. “How long have you been out there?”

 

“Only about ten minutes.”

 

“How…How bad to the temperatures get?” She trails off significantly.

 

“Minus sixty by sundown.”

 

Rey is biting her nails. She swallows hard. “And you can’t fly.”

 

“No. I’m stranded. I need you to come get me, Rey.”

 

She doesn’t say a word. Her knuckle is all the way between her teeth. Her face is contorting. Her eyes are growing red.

 

He’s not sure whether it’s genuine or a self preservation tactic, or probably both, as he says, “And if you don’t, I suppose this is goodbye.”

 

Rey shakes her head. “No.” He can hear the unshed tears in her voice. “No, no, no, no. This is all your fault. None of this would have happened if you had just called off the attack on the fleet. But now we’re almost all dead, and it’s…at least a fourth your fault.”

 

“I’m sorry, Rey…”

 

“I have done everything for you.” She says, waving her finger at him. Her hands are shaking.

 

“…I killed Snoke!” Kylo mutters quietly, because apparently he can’t restrain himself at all.

 

“I fought Luke Skywalker for you. I shipped myself in a glorified crate to you. I let Snoke torture me for you. I’ve done nothing but fight for you. And after all that you want me to come for you again?” She throws her hands up. “What’s new?”

 

“Rey. Please. I am going to die in about an hour unless you come get me. One last time.” Rey has clamped her eyes and lips shut, and turned away from him. “Please. I need you to come for me one more time; and I will fight for you for the rest of my life.”

 

“And do you mean that?”

 

“Like the throne room.”

 

Rey turns away. He can’t tell what’s happening for a moment as she reaches for something out of his sight. She’s moving her fingers like she’s using a data pad imbedded in a stand. It isn’t until she turns back to him that he sees the tears flowing freely down her face.

 

“It will take me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Hoth.” Rey says, reading her various instruments. “And you’d better not be frozen solid by the time I get there.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll work on that.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thanks for reading, everyone. I know I recommended a fic earlier, but while we're on the subject of things I recommend, I also HIGHLY recommend seeing _Blackkklansmen_. I saw it last night, and I'm still shook. 
> 
> The "dead fish on the pavement" line is a modified version of the opening line to "Introduction" by Scroobius Pip, which has been an excellent Kylo mood song (to me) as long as I've been writing him. 
> 
> The next update should be coming along some time next weekend/early next week! In the meantime, I'm on tumblr as [DarthVictoriana](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darthvictoriana); come say hi!


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